Ascent into Light
by Thrippa
Summary: Shattered by the deliberate murder of his grandaughter, Professor Gerald made a few alterations to his projects before losing control. Shadow, after a lifetime on the ARK, finds himself suddenly in a fascinating new world and fifty years in the future.
1. Ascent into Light

**A.N.: **Hello again! This is a more standard fanfic than Descent into Darkness (at least subject-wise) and will definitely be shorter - but then it only covers a few days rather than forty-odd years. If you haven't played Sonic Adventure 2 in either of its versions, there will be spoilers. Other games referred to or used as background info include SA, Sonic Battle, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Riders, but I don't think there's anything to merit a spoiler warning.

If you haven't read Descent, you may want to consider it, as this is a sequel. The main thing you _need_ to know is that I find the term "furry" rather silly, especially given that some of them (e.g. Vector the Crocodile, Jet the Hawk) don't HAVE fur. So, in this world they are called "dokan". Also the humans live primarily in the northern hemisphere, while the dokan live primarily in the southern, although that may not always have been true.

Thirdly: Shadow, Eggman, Rouge, and all other SEGA characters are the property of SEGA, as is most of the plot in this case. The actual text itself is mine except for those quotations taken dierectly from the game.

**Ascent Into Light**

The sign that had been painted over the aluminum bay door was all but gone; sun and rain had nearly obliterated the letters since the last tractor-trailer had backed up to the scarred dock. The man gliding up to the door in a small hovering vehicle didn't even look up as he unlocked the massive lock and rolled the door upwards. Once the docking bay was open, he glided on in, under the barely-legible letters reading "Robotnik Inc."

The loading area was nearly empty, a half-dozen robotic loaders stood along one wall covered in dust. Dr. Ivo Robotnik, better known to the dokan by his _nom de guerre_ 'Dr. Eggman', parked his hovercraft neatly in line with the immobile mechs and stepped out of it. He inspected the loaders briefly with an appraising eye, then shook his head. "Too bulky. Too slow. Those won't do at all." He leaned all of his considerable weight on the doors between the warehouse and the loading bay and finally the hinges consented to yield; the door swung slowly open with a tooth-clenching screech.

"How long has it been?" Eggman mused as he switched on the overhead lights. "Twelve, fifteen years since I closed this branch down?" He headed across the empty space towards a door in the far wall, leaving tracks in the thick layer of dust and indeterminate debris. Reaching the door, he unlocked it and stepped through into an area that was even dustier. Poking among the old prototypes and experimental robots, he noticed a crate in a corner, half shrouded by a tarp. Dragging a hover scooter out of the way, he inspected the crate. "Shipped from Prison Island, hmm? Why would...surely Grandpa didn't send us anything from there?" Intrigued, he pulled on the front of the case, still muttering to himself. "Already opened, and not resealed. Well, what have we here...a robot?" He dragged the thing out into the light. "Archaic-looking; don't recognize the design." He tugged lightly at the chest panel, frowned into the cavity and pulled out a computer disc. Reading the label, "'Diary of Professor Gerald Robotnik.' I wonder what old Granddad was doing with this thing?" He pocketed the disc, then with a quick glance around the room, he heaved the golden robot across a shoulder and left the warehouse.


	2. 1 Far Beyond My Time

1. Far Beyond my Time

Shadow the Hedgehog was suddenly, acutely aware of a machine humming nearby and a feeling of motion. He was rising, or the surface on which he lay was rising, and he could feel the unmistakable blaze of a Chaos Emerald nearby_. Only...that's not the Emerald I know; has the Professor found another, or GUN? _He drew a breath as his chest muscles 'awoke', recognizing the metallic tang of the Prison Island stasis bed while still unable to open his eyes. Something was different though_. The air smells stale. Is there something wrong with the ventilation? Or maybe it's been more than a few days since the Professor was down here last... _The last thought seemed to have merit, after all the stasis beds and their inhabitants didn't need to breathe, and it would save on energy not to keep the air conditioned and circulating in unused areas. And the professor might well have hesitated to return too soon after– his mind flicked away from too-painful memories, grasping at a current puzzle as a distraction. The air seemed far too stale for a few weeks, or even a few months of disuse. His eyes flicked open at last and he realized his bed was rising well above the floor - and that this was NOT the room he'd seen last time the Professor had awakened him, after GUN had 'rescued' his escape pod._ Is it **not** the Professor then? _He spotted a large, oddly-shaped figure on the floor. A wry curl of one side of his mouth, _The moustache looks big enough._. As the canopy slid aside and the bed ceased rising, he pulled himself up, standing on top of the bed.

His vision finally focusing, he realized that the odd silhouette below was that of a man in some sort of two-legged walking machine. A very large human; not only his moustache but his glasses and jutting nose were strongly reminiscent of Professor Gerald.

"What's that?" the man sputtered, looking up at Shadow. "Is that you, Sonic!? Are you trying to spoil my plans again!?" He sounded both indignant and outraged, but slid quickly towards shock as he got a better look at the black and red dokan above him. "Wait a minute... you're not Sonic! This is impossible!"

Shadow had no idea who - or what - Sonic was, but it sounded as if he were an enemy to the human below. And people with enemies were generally interested in weapons. _He thinks **I'm** a weapon; the military would have listed me as such, however he found out about me. And if he is interested in a weapon... _ It did not occur to him, then, to wonder how he was so certain of that. "My name is Shadow. Since you were so kind as to release me, my master... I will grant you one wish." _One wish? Why did I say– _

Shadow was interrupted mid-thought as red lights began flashing and alarms blared outside in the corridor. He heard the human below exclaim in irritation as a metal door in one wall rolled up to allow entry of a small flying craft. The black hedgehog welcomed the chance to relieve his confusion and growing sense that something was wrong with a bit of physical destruction. "Behold, the true power I possess," he declaimed grandly. He kicked on his hover shoes and leapt into the air, holding the position as long as the shoes permitted before dropping to the floor between the walker-bot and the flying machine. Gliding forward he positioned himself on top of a nearby crate to get a better look at his opponent.

The machine glided forward, spraying bullets as it went. It was child's play to dodge them, and even easier to avoid the missiles that followed as the vehicle settled onto two massive legs. Shadow dashed forward and did his jump-curl, leaving a sizable dent in the nose of the craft; he caught a glimpse of two eyes wide with shock beneath a GUN helmet.

_Kill the soldier! _

_Shadow! you have to save them! _

Two voices yelling conflicting orders inside his head were enough to distract him and he barely moved out of the way of the next stream of bullets as the guard vehicle took to the air again; he then used another crate as a launch pad to home in on the craft's nose three more times. As he tried to target the fourth attack the craft simply sank to the ground. The pilot scrambled out an escape hatch and fled. Shadow ignored him, shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge the voice that was yelling at him to prevent the man's escape. Maria's voice had wanted to save them, of course, but the other voice... surely it wasn't the professor - he'd always wanted to help people. The black hedgehog looked up quickly as the human who'd awakened him clomped over in his walker-bot.

"Destroying that guard robot was spectacular!" the man enthused. "So, Shadow, YOU are the military's Top-Secret weapon." His eyebrows lowered slightly as he looked down at the dark dokan before him, "But what did you mean when you said you would grant me a wish?"

Shadow didn't answer - he was not actually certain himself, though he took care not to let any of his internal confusion show. He could feel the Chaos Emerald blazing in the machine that had awakened him, but all seven would be needed. "Bring more Chaos Emeralds," Shadow ordered as he turned to walk out the door. He could certainly acquire his own without help, but let the human gather the other six, as a sort of test.

"Shadow, wait!" The human didn't try to pursue him.

Shadow didn't even turn around. "I'll be waiting for you, in the central control room, on the Space Colony ARK."

"ARK!?" The confused reply followed him out the door. Shadow ignored it and kept walking, annoyed by the continuing alarms. Several times he ducked behind equipment to avoid squads of GUN soldiers, or patrolling robots. The robots were of two types, tall bipedal ones and the elongated flying-saucer types that Maria had called 'Beetles'; Shadow had seen prototypes of both on the ARK. The soldiers' uniforms were not what he remembered, although they bore a variation of the GUN insignia he knew. _How long has it been_, he wondered,_ and where is the Professor?_ He felt as if the last three days had been one unending nightmare - first Professor Gerald, the man he called 'Father' being called to Earth, then the alleged disaster on the ARK that had merely been a cover for the GUN raid to kill all the doctors and researchers. That had culminated in Shadow's terrified flight with Maria and the far, far worse moment when he stood, trapped in the escape pod that was supposed to have saved them both, and watched her fall dying outside, inches away and yet impossible to reach. The pod launched automatically, and the next thing he knew was the Professor awakening him, warning him to pretend to be a servant as both were captives of GUN, making him relive those last dreadful moments on the ARK, then returning him to the non-sleep of stasis.

With an effort, he shook off the memories and focused on the problem in front of him_. Now what? I need information...a computer._ He experimentally pressed the pad on the next door he came to, and it slid open. _Careless, these humans._ The room actually had a computer in it - that was not locked out. Very careless. Were they that frightened by the alarms? He hopped up into the chair so he could reach the keyboard - and snorted as he got a better look at what was on the screen. Naked humans were of no interest to him so he keyed in the name of a world-wide news channel. When the current headlines came up, he felt his jaw drop. _No. That- that can't be the date! That's...fifty-one years from now. From then. I'm...in the future. _He saw the headlines without quite reading them - something about a place, Station Square, rebuilding after a disaster, no leads on a hunt for a Dr. Eggman, some medical company had lost a billion dollars when it had to cancel a drug during trials...

He was wasting time, he realized, closing his mouth and calling up a search engine site...which the computer didn't recognize. But he noticed a blank area at the top of the screen following the phrase 'Search for:' and entered 'Chaos Emerald locations'. A lot of entries came up, but four or five repetitions of 'National Reserve Bank' caught his eye, so he called up one of those.

Glancing over his shoulder at the door, he quickly read 'One of the Chaos Emeralds used in the great fight between Super Sonic and the Chaos monster has been loaned for permanent display to the National Reserve Bank in Bay Port. Contained in a specially secure case, it may be seen during regular bank hours 8:30am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday.' Directions on how to get to the Bank followed, and he quickly memorized them_. Now, if I only knew where I actually was, I could find out how to get from here to there. _Hearing another squad tramping by the door, he backed the computer up to the original nude human screen and slipped out into the halls. He decided to follow the next squad of soldiers but had to wait for several patrols of the Beetles to pass through before the humans appeared.

Following them from the shadows, he eventually reached a door labeled 'To Supply Dock' and slipped through it after allowing the troops to move out of sight. A short hall led to an open area surrounded by storage sheds and open to a dock that had several cargo ships tethered to it. As he settled himself among a stack of crates he noted that the alarms had ceased. _Guess the guy that freed me has either escaped or been caught_. Eventually the all clear was given and one of the ships cast off. Before the tug had pulled it more than a few feet from the dock, a black-and-red blur had raced up the dock and jumped the distance to the rail. Once on board, he searched for a safe place to wait for the ship to reach its destination.


	3. 2 A New World

2. A New World

Night had fallen by the time the boat reached the mainland. Shadow had found himself a ledge outside the...sort of building on the top of the boat. He thought the floor was called a deck, like the floors of the ARK, but maritime terminology had not been a large part of his training on the ARK, before or after he was awakened, so he wasn't sure what the house-like part was. At any rate, he was up out of sight, especially given his black fur, while the humans - sailors, he _did_ know that much - scurried to tie up the boat and unload a few crates. As soon as the coast was clear, he dropped down from his perch and glided down the ramp to the...dock, he thought it was called. He then skated up towards the massive buildings at the far end of the rough planks. His hover shoes gave him a smooth stride over any solid surface, but this was a far cry from the smooth-textured metal or stone walkways of the ARK.

Reaching the buildings he kept to the shadows, shivering as a sudden draught of air came rushing past towards the water. _Wind_, the thought surfaced from deep in his brain, _wind is a frequent occurrence where water meets land because the land holds the heat during the day and the water at night. Warm air rises and lowers the local pressure which causes the colder air to move into the area. _That was the flat, emotionless knowledge of his flash-training. Current experience added the more emotional footnote, _and it's cold!_ He wasn't particularly affected by cold or heat, not to the degree that humans were, but he was aware of temperature and was most comfortable in a certain range. Everything was very strange; at least in the GUN base he had been surrounded by walls and ceilings as he had been his entire life. Here, around the buildings was open air, and above...

He tipped his head back and looked up. The sky above was black with dark grey areas where lights reflected off...clouds? He'd never seen them from below...and in the black areas a few faint stars shone through, far fewer than he was used to on the ARK. He shivered involuntarily, there was so much SPACE! _Stop it, Shadow_, he told himself firmly. _You went out of the ARK a few times, and that, even with the fizz fields, was more open space than this is. This is the planet you and Maria always wanted to go to. _He blinked as his eyes stung, and swallowed against a strange feeling like food caught in his throat, though he hadn't eaten in - _Can it REALLY be fifty years!? _He shook himself, trying to focus on the present. _I have to do what she wanted done, because she can't – she's not here to do it herself_. After another look around, and another involuntary shiver at the strange, open, windy space, he headed towards the lighted part of the complex, where he could see a tall fence and several gates.

When he got close enough to see clearly, he could see that there were human guards in a small building near the only gate that was open, and huge vehicles going in and out through it. _Trucks_, his training supplied, _tractor-trailers or semis_. Moving cautiously along the edge of the lit area he noticed a hole in the bottom of the fence between some metal barrels. A quick dash took him across the lighted pavement. After a moment he flopped down on his chest and crawled through the hole. Small plants were growing all around, not in pots or hydroponic tubes but out of the floor. _The ground. I'm on Earth now, so what is below me is ground, unless it's inside. _He quickly discovered that not all of the plants were so small, and some had sharp points on them. He made his way back towards the gate and the corridor of pavement leading away from the buildings. All of the trucks were gone now, so he moved alongside the paved strip until he was certain the guards wouldn't see him, then moved out onto it and kicked on his skates. _This is a road. A road has to go somewhere. When I get there, maybe I can find how to get to Bay Port to find the "National Reserve Bank" that the article mentioned. Then the Chaos Emerald will be mine! _

_Actually_, he reflected, _if I can get close enough I should be able to sense it...but this world is a lot bigger than the ARK_.

Before too long he came to another road crossing the one he was on. A large sign indicated several directions with a word or two opposite each arrow. One phrase caught his eye. "Bay Port," he read aloud. "That's the name of the city I need to go to. So...that way." He turned and followed the road leading left. Before long buildings began to appear on the sides of the road, many dark and unwelcoming but a few brightly lit and with people visible inside. He tried to avoid the lit areas as he avoided the occasional vehicles on the road, but in some places he had to go across them. He came to a dead stop when he saw one door slide open as someone exited, not because of the door, but because of the person. Unlike the humans that he had seen all his life, the person walking out that door was only three feet tall - a few inches shorter than he - grey furred, and waving a long tail behind her. It was the first dokan he had ever seen. Unlike Shadow, who wore only his hover shoes and gloves, this cat wore a knee-length denim skirt and a blue top as well as gloves and shoes. He gaped as she walked off in the other direction, got into a small vehicle - _a car_, he remembered - and drove away. Suddenly realizing his mouth was open he closed it. _A dokan. A **real** dokan._ He skated on, wondering if there were any other hedgehogs around beside him.

After a while he noticed that off to one side the sky was getting brighter. He turned away from the road into a patch of plants, grass and trees. There were different types of trees, but although he knew some of the names he didn't know what name went with which tree. Sitting down on a convenient bench, he looked at the sky as the blackness faded and the light grew brighter. Orange and gold crept up into view and eventually the blinding disk of the sun rose behind the hills. Shadow gazed around in absolute wonder as the sky above him turned the most beautiful blue he had ever seen, the same shade as Maria's eyes. Clouds floated in puffy white clumps. _The colors are so bright. So completely different form the ARK's monochrome background. _He remembered the steel and plastic corridors he'd lived in; there were accents of color in the people and furnishings, but the basic colors were shades of grey and white, with the absolute black of space outside every window. _Only the garden area, where Maria would sit and pretend she was on Earth again, had anything like this and it was so, so poor an imitation. Oh, Maria,_ he thought,_ I wish you were here to see this; it's what you always wanted to see. _

The traffic on the street was picking up, more vehicles traveling at higher speeds, and now bicycles and pedestrians were on the pale strips of pavement along the darker main strip. Most were human, but a few were dokan of various races: a rabbit, another cat, and a family of rust-colored foxes. He got up and moved back towards the sidewalk, hesitating as he reached the foxes, who were looking at a sign he hadn't noticed when he turned onto the green area. Or rather, the vixen was looking at the sign. The dog fox was looking at a piece of paper he was holding, while the son was trying to drag his mother into the green space. Shadow noted that the sign read Mission Park and was about to move into the flow of walkers when a voice stopped him.

"Excuse me, sir. Mr. Hedgehog?"

Shadow blinked at the canine in surprise. "Ah, yes?"

"Do you live around here? We're tourists and I'm afraid we're a bit lost. We were looking for the bus to Golden Span Park."

"Oh. No, I'm afraid I'm new here myself," answered Shadow. "In fact, I'm lost too. I just sat down for a few minutes while I...tried to get my bearings."

"Oh. Well, I'm Dai Reynard, that's my wife Lilia, and our son–"

"David," interrupted the son. "We're foxes, what are you?"

"David! You know you're not supposed to interrupt! I'm sorry sir," said Lilia to Shadow. "He's a bit too curious sometimes."

"That's all right," said Shadow, crouching down a bit, so he was level with the cub's gold eyes. "I'm a hedgehog," he said to the fox cub. "My name is Shadow." He looked up at the adults who were conferring over the piece of folded paper, which he now saw was a map. "Do you know where the National Reserve Bank is located?" he asked as he stood back up.

"Hmmm," said the vixen as she unfolded more of the map. "Ah! Yes. Here it is...right here." She indicated a spot on the paper, Shadow saw the tiny letters spelling out the name of his goal. "And we're here," she continued as her black-gloved finger traced across the map to a green patch labeled 'Mission Park'.

"Ah, yes, I see," said Shadow as he committed what he could see of the map to memory. The visual diagram would be more useful than the directions he'd memorized earlier, especially as he wasn't certain where he was supposed to start from for those. "Thank you very much ma'am. I hope you get where you're going." He nodded to the adults and gave the cub a little wave as he started down the sidewalk. At least now he knew where he was going.

It was a very long walk. He didn't want to use his skates, since he didn't see anyone else using anything similar, and he had to stop periodically to rest; the fifty years in stasis - he felt the shock anew every time he caught sight of the date on a newspaper or sign - had had an effect on his stamina. Adding that to the fact that _everything_ was strange, from the sights and sounds of the city to the very dirt beneath his feet and the sun arcing across the blue sky above, it took him most of the day to find his goal. _It's probably just as well_, he reflected, as he looked at the large grey building by the light of the setting sun. _This sort of work is better done in the dark, especially when one has black fur_. He turned away and found a place where he could watch the sun set. It was even more beautiful than the sunrise, as from his vantage point he could see it seeming to sink into the ocean. Once night had fallen he returned to the bank.


	4. 3 An Emerald and Chaos

3. An Emerald and Chaos

Shadow sat on a bench across the street watching people leave the bank. He toyed with a golden ring he'd picked up during his walk. The Professor had told him that they were made of solidified Chaos energy, but no one had quite figured out how they connected to the Chaos Emeralds themselves, although there had been none before the Professor's visit to Angel Island where he had acquired his Chaos Emerald. Soon afterwards the rings had begun appearing across the dokan lands, eventually spreading into the human-dominated portions of the Earth, and by the time Shadow was 'born' even into the ARK itself. Scattered around the city, he'd encountered several clusters and lines of the things, all hanging in the air about 6-12 inches off the ground.

The windows set high in the walls darkened or dimmed one by one. At last a final few humans came out, several dressed in uniforms that he did not recognize, but he knew the body language of 'guards' well enough. He noticed one of the uniformed men staring in his direction. As a bus pulled up and stopped nearby, Shadow got up and moved so it was between him and the bank, then moved back into the shadow of some bushes. When the bus pulled away again, the guards were no longer visible, although the two people who were not in uniforms were getting into a car.

_A lot of lights around the building_, Shadow noted. _No place to hide. Guards on the inside. _He closed his eyes and 'reached' for the Emerald. It was there, blazing like the sun to his sixth sense, the same as it had been when he'd first located the bank. There was a sign up in front of the building, offering a tour of some sort that included a close-up view of 'one of the gems that saved Station Square'. Shadow hadn't bothered, he suspected it cost money. A lot of things in this world seemed to cost money, and something that had been a vague abstraction on the ARK was suddenly very solid and real. He'd only gotten lunch because the woman standing behind him in the food line had paid for his food, telling him cheerfully that everyone forgot their wallets sometimes, and that he should pass the favor along to someone else later. He wasn't sure what a wallet was, he had thought that dollars and cents were the currency in this region.

He 'felt' the emerald, gauging the amount of power it was emitting. It didn't seem to be giving off as much as the one he remembered, although the power was unmistakably there in the gem. _Maybe because the Gizoid was using it_, he thought, _maybe that triggered it to release more power. Now, if I just..._ He didn't dare try to teleport himself into the building - that would be extremely dangerous since he didn't know the layout. He wasn't certain what would happen if he teleported into a space occupied by something else, but he didn't really want to find out. However...

The walls of the lower stories of the building were almost solid stone, with glass panels on either side of the doors. The upper floors however had windows set into them. A decorative beam ran across the front of the building about 50 feet off the ground, right below a row of the windows. Shadow stood up, focused his concentration and...was there, standing on the beam instead of the sidewalk. He looked through the windows in front of him, noted an office with an open door and teleported himself into it.

Shadow looked around the dimly lit room. The office didn't seem too much different from Gerald's on the ARK, except that this one wasn't tacked on one side of a laboratory. A desk, a few chairs, with some writing instruments, stacks of papers and a computer on the desk. A couple of file cabinets and a telephone. Some things hadn't changed much in half a century, at least. Shadow listened to the silence out in the hall, then stepped onto the worn carpet. Picking a direction he followed the hall towards what he hoped would be a way down. Instead, he found himself on one side of a large open area filled with a maze of low walls - low in the sense that they didn't reach the ceiling; they were still several feet taller than he was. He heard a soft 'ding' and the sound of doors sliding open, followed by footsteps. Slipping through the closest gap in the low walls, he found himself in a small square area crowded by a desk, cabinet and chair. As the footsteps grew closer, he ducked under the desk, pressing as far into the shadows as he could. A guard passed by without even glancing into the area. At least, Shadow supposed by the uniform that he was a guard - he was severely overweight and didn't look like he could stop an angry goldfish, let alone an armed criminal. At any rate, the man moved on down the hall Shadow had come in by, and Shadow took the opportunity to leave his hiding place and trace back along the man's trail until he found the elevator.

_The tour description said second floor_. He pressed the button that read '2' and the elevator slid down the shaft. _Something else that hasn't changed. Hmmph, I guess there's not much you can do with an elevator. _ The car stopped, the doors slid open, and he glided out fast in case anyone was around. The floor seemed deserted. Like the one he'd come in by, it was mostly open space, but in this case the 'maze' was of display containers and ropes. Unlike the previous floor, this one had no lights on at all, only what came though the windows... and the Emerald. Shadow didn't need to search for the jewel; it not only blazed like a bonfire to his sixth sense, but threw a green glow on nearby objects in the darkened room. _I was right, it's not as active as the one on the ARK was. Well this part's easy enough. _He skated into the room and lifted the lid on the case. Only it didn't lift. Frowning, he tugged at it again, then picked up one of the poles that supported the ropes and swung that at the clear box. The only result was a loud 'wham!' It took three more swings, putting all of his strength into them to crack, then shatter the box so that he could reach in and grasp the Chaos Emerald. He closed his eyes a moment, feeling the power welling up between his fingers as the Emerald came to life, enhancing his senses - and heard a humming from the far side of the room.

Shadow spun around, spotting a door he hadn't noticed when he came in. It swung open, revealing a set of uniform grey robots with a vaguely familiar look to them. He didn't waste time trying to identify them though, instead tapping the Emerald's power and teleporting himself back to the beam he had entered from. However the situation had changed dramatically since he had left it.

When he'd first stood on the beam, it had been dark, with just the moonlight and what light came from the dimly-lit windows or reflected up from passing cars. Now blinding spotlights played back and forth across the entire front of the building, highlighting his red stripes and the white patch of fur on his chest. A whooping siren - no several - could be heard approaching rapidly. He felt a sudden surge of nervousness at the noise, but it wasn't until the flashing red lights came in sight that something inside made him break and run.

Emerald in hand, he drew on its power without conscious thought and moved, dropping from the beam and landing amidst a swarm of guard robots, that he jump-curled or simply punched out of his way. The red flashing lights and sirens were closer now and as soon as he fought his way clear, he fled, downhill, away from the sirens, hearing a different set of alarms in his head.

Suddenly there was nothing in front of him, just a sharp drop to a dark irregular surface below. With no time to stop he teleported to the highest vantage point in sight, the top of a support for the Golden Span bridge. Shivering slightly in the chill wind, he looked down at the cars collecting on the bridge beneath him sirens still blaring as the red lights spun and flashed. "Hmmph, how pathetic," he muttered scornfully. The famous bridge was currently closed for repairs - whole sections of the road were out - so the cars would be unable to pursue him but he'd have no problem getting across. Not that they could have caught him anyway. But... those sirens...

He closed his eyes again, trying to clear his mind, but found scenes he never wanted to see again playing behind his eyelids: The halls of the ARK, alarms wailing and emergency lights flashing as he pounded down the corridor pulling Maria after him. A harsh voice in the background called "Don't let them escape!" and then Maria was leaning on the control panel while Shadow leaped for the escape capsule. "Maria!!", he cried, and "What?" as the clear alloy closed around him. "Shadow...I beg of you... Please–" the girl gasped for air, blood staining her arm and the console. "Maria!" cried Shadow again, but she went on, "–do it for me...for all the people...on that planet... Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog." The capsule dropped through the floor and freezing blackness swirled around Shadow, filling his heart with rage.

Glowering down at the humans and vehicles below, he answered his sister, now fifty years dead. "Maria...I still remember what I promised you... For all the people of this planet...I promise you...REVENGE!" Dimly he realized that something was wrong with that statement, or perhaps the memory itself, but rage and reawakened grief spurred him on, and he leapt from the top of the support to the nearest suspension cable, grinding down it, away from the police, like a skateboarder on a stair rail. In the distance a set of fighter jets roared towards the bridge like sleeked-down shuttles.


	5. 4 Black and Blue

4. Black and Blue

Several of the jets swooped over Shadow, firing on the black hedgehog as he raced along the bridge leaping construction supplies and gaps in the roadway. More problematic were the Beetles and other GUN robots that arrived with the jets, spreading out in areas the planes couldn't reach. _Hunters! _he remembered, suddenly._ Beetles and Hunters, THAT'S what they're called_, as he smashed one of the humanoid robots and hauled himself up a pulley. There was some sort of rocket at the top_. Hmm. Maybe it's to carry the cables over the supports? _Whatever the reason he decided on a whim to grab the crossbar below it and launch the thing. It whisked him out across the next gap until he let go and dropped back to the pavement, where he had to cross a narrow girder to continue.

A little further on he approached to another too-wide-to-jump gap, this one spanned by a line of the golden rings, strung out above where the road should have been. A pair of Beetles behind him made him disinclined to stop at the edge. _They're Chaos energy_, he thought, glancing at the Emerald, _could I...? _As he hit the end of the road and jumped he pulled at the energy in the rings and found himself suddenly on the far side of the gap.

Continuing the obstacle course - and taking out not a few Hunters and Beetles as he went - he reached the other end of the bridge and started zigzagging through the streets. When he spotted a barrier and armed men across the road in front of him, he teleported to the top of the closest building and ran along the roofs for a bit. Although he had no qualms about smashing their robots and machines, he disliked the idea of actually harming a human - or at least a human he didn't know. The soldiers that had killed Maria he would have taken down without hesitation.

"Now," he said to himself, pulling his focus back to the present situation, "I just need to get back to the ARK, and open the way to the central control room. As soon as I lose these imbeciles, I should be able to locate the ARK and then..." He hopped across a narrow gap between two buildings and kept going. "Then I can put the plan into effect and keep my promise." His fingers tightened around the jewel he carried as he ran through the plan mentally. He dropped back down to street level, landing on something without really noticing what it was. Gazing into the green heart of the stone he felt an odd sense of certainty, that this was what he was MEANT to do. "It all begins with this... a jewel containing the _ultimate_ power." Hearing someone panting he looked around - he was standing on a freshly smashed vehicle that resembled the one he'd dealt with in the depths of Prison Island, and being stared at by a bright blue dokan hedgehog.

"That's the... Chaos Emerald!! Now I know what's going on!" The blue hedgehog began advancing towards Shadow looking outraged. "The military has mistaken ME for the likes of YOU! So, where do you think you're going with that Emerald?"

Shadow was too busy staring at the other to give him an answer, even if he'd been able to think of one. His purpose was suddenly in conflict with his curiosity; he'd never seen a true dokan hedgehog except in pictures. This hedgehog looked surprisingly like Shadow himself, except that his quills lacked the kink that Shadow's had near the tips, and his fur was solid blue instead of red-marked black. Also unlike Shadow, the blue's arms and chest were bare of fur; the skin there and on his muzzle was a few shades paler than Shadow's own dark tan muzzle. As with all the male dokan, he wore only a pair of gloves and footgear, in this case bright red running shoes. Suddenly he _was_ running, moving towards Shadow with surprising speed.

"Say something!" the blue challenged him. "You fake hedgehog!"

That caught Shadow off guard; one of his private fears was whether the dokan would accept him if they knew him to be a research project, and being so casually called a fake cut shockingly deep. Masking his reaction, he casually tossed the Emerald into the air and cried, "Chaos Control!" As he activated his odd time-slowing ability, the gem flared green and seemed to hang in midair. He snatched it back and glided casually past the suddenly stop-motion challenger. A chaos-powered teleport took him back up to the roof of a building behind the blue hedgehog, and he let the time slip end.

His challenger skidded to a stop below him, looking around and saying something Shadow didn't catch. As the blue hedgehog located the black one on the roof, Shadow introduced himself. "My name is Shadow. I'm the world's Ultimate Life Form. There's no time for games; farewell!!" He teleported himself to another roof far enough away to be out of the blue's sight.

He didn't waste time reflecting on the encounter; time enough for that once he set things up on the ARK. He closed his eyes and drew on the Emerald again, using it to extend his reach far beyond what he could normally achieve. _There! _Even dormant, the concentration of Chaos drives in the colony could still be felt. _Can I teleport that far? Yes_, he decided, _but then I **will** need to rest. Even using the Chaos Emerald's energy, I have to spend some of my own to control it. Not to mention all the running and walking I've been doing. Can it REALLY be fifty years?_ Focus, draw power, reach...and there. In a flash of green light the night sky and buildings vanished and were replaced by bare, dusty corridors of plastic and stone.

He looked around and confirmed that he was in the Professor's wing. He stumbled slightly as he made it to the lab and activated the computer, adjusting the map to show the previously hidden central core of the Eclipse Cannon and the secret route to it. Then he staggered into his own room and crawled between the blankets despite the dust. He had definitely used up too much of his energy between the time break and that last teleport; he'd have to be more careful in the future. He was asleep before it could occur to him that he'd never learned how to alter the computer's map program.


	6. 5 Reflection and Plans

**A/N: ** I've made a few minor changes to chapters 3 & 4, mainly because I got to the last chapter (yeah, the story itself is finished, I just have to post it) and realized that I'd left the rings out completely...and I suddenly needed them. One of those things where I knew they were there but I hadn't actually said so, so they seemed to pop out of nowhere.

5. Reflection and Plans

The air was stale and cold, and so dry that the back of his throat burned. Shadow dragged himself out of a heavy sleep, reaching automatically for the light switch as he had nearly every day of his life. As the lights came up, the room revealed was in many ways familiar, but buried under an unfamiliar layer of dust.

Shadow sat up and reached for his hover shoes where he'd kicked them off next to the bed. "Computer," he called, "increase heat and ventilation."

Nothing happened. Frowning, he pulled on his shoes and then pulled the dusty blanket up over the pillow. "Probably no point in trying the Professor's console," he said to himself. "Everything's probably shut down at the main unit." He left the wing and made his way to the Eclipse Cannon's central core, which was linked to the main ARK computers. A few moments' work activated the minibots that had dealt with dust and trash, as well as restoring the ventilation and heating systems. It also activated a certain number of guard robots, but he ignored those. If they bothered him he could handle them, and they would keep stray intruders out. As for the man who'd awakened him - if a few guard robots were too much for him to handle, it was unlikely he'd be able to obtain the Chaos Emeralds. The dark hedgehog set up a quiet alarm to let him know if anyone landed on the ARK and began trying to find information on his 'benefactor'. It was far easier than he'd expected - and scarcely believable. The Prison Island security, which the Cannon's computer was still silently linked to, had already identified the intruder as a 'Dr. Eggman', _née_... "Ivo Robotnik. Gerald's grandson," Shadow read aloud, his voice echoing in the lightless vastness around him. "I don't believe it." He scanned what was known about the man: he was acknowledged as a scientific genius, but possibly a 'mad' scientist, with a doctorate in robotics; although it was generally believed that the current head of Robotnik Enterprises was also this 'Dr. Eggman' who had caused (literal!) chaos in Station Square - and now broken into Prison Island - , there was no legal proof. Dr. Eggman had tried several times to take over portions of the dokan lands, and then the entire planet. _A giant monster made of water? And now apparently he's trying again with me and the Eclipse Cannon. _Shadow sent the computer to standby and sat down on the edge of the walkway.

_Gerald's grandson. Fifty years. _He stared down into the blackness below. The Biolizard was somewhere down there; still locked in her stasis. The copy of the Echidnan temple was there as well, concentric rings of stone. Here, except for the dust (he raised a hand to let one of the minibots pass by, sucking up said dust as it went), there was nothing to show that time had passed, but out there...

He couldn't help himself. Like someone poking a sore spot to see if it still hurt, he shifted the alarm location to the Loop and made his way back out to the main colony. Passing his own footprints in the dust in several areas, he walked to the Loop. He shivered slightly as he looked up and down the silent corridor, kicking on his hover shoes and gliding to the top of the slope. _"Come on, Shadow," teased Maria, "surely you can handle a course as easy as this one__!" __Shadow looked down the slope, noting where the target bags and jumps had been placed. With a slight smirk he raised his ruby eyes to meet the girl's dancing blue ones. "Well, I suppose I **might** be able to do it...in about 23 seconds__!" __And he was off - darting down the slope, leaping the first jump and homing on the nearest target. Twenty-two and a quarter seconds later he was skidding to a stop beside her._ A host of similar memories crowded his mind as he pushed away and glided down the slope in the here-and-now, two weeks or fifty years away from that day. There was no beloved sister to cheer him on anymore, no targets to aim at, only the frantically cleaning minibots to occasionally hop over. But the repetitive strides, taking him down one slope, across, up the other slope and back to his starting point, sent him as they often did into a near-trance. Usually he used the time to meditate, but this time he tried to blank his mind, to not recognize that the halls and apartments he passed were abandoned and empty of all but dust.

It was almost a relief when the alarm chimed, alerting him to an intruder in the main halls. Quickly he dashed back to the core control room and waited. Before long he heard distant crashes and shots as the guarding robots attempted to halt the intruder. Shadow keyed a few optional bits of holographic display to standby mode and settled himself to wait.

He did not have to wait very long, in fact, before the elevator doors opened and the ungainly walking machine clumped in. The rotund human hopped out of the machine but remained cautiously on the far side of the narrow, rail-less bridge. Shadow could sense a Chaos Emerald in the walker, but the man made no move to bring it out. No matter. Shadow only needed his own to lure the man further in. As with the first time he'd met the man, the words rolling off Shadow's tongue didn't _quite_ seem to be his own. "I've been waiting for you, Doctor. Now, I will show the glorious achievement that the world's leading scientist - Professor Gerald - has created." Reaching back he hit a key on the computer, and in addition to the usual array of screens and lights, a swirl of holographic maps and information swirled around the central unit as well.

"The ARK was the first space colony created by mankind. Not many people know that the ARK contained a top-secret research facility, where weapons of mass destruction were being created. This is one of them; a weapon capable of destroying an entire planet. Codenamed: 'The Eclipse Cannon'." _No, wait_, said a small voice in the back of his brain,_ the Eclipse cannon was to destroy near-Earth asteroids, not the EARTH. _But whatever had taken possession of his tongue ignored it and kept on.

"Destroying an entire planet... Was this my grandfather's legacy?" murmured the entranced scientist.

Ignoring that comment as well, Shadow continued, the cool voice sounding vaguely disappointed, "But, it's been deactivated for some time now..." He tossed his Chaos Emerald into one of the indentations in the appropriate panel, and green gem began to pulse as the machine drew power from it. "To reactivate it...large amounts of energy are necessary."

"Oh, so that's why we needed the Chaos Emerald," said the Doctor as understanding dawned.

"Exactly," Shadow agreed coolly. "To reactivate the machine, we need the seven Chaos Emeralds. Once you have that, then you have the ultimate power of destruction to use as you please. And then...the world could be yours."

The man laughed with sinister delight. "Sounds like a plan!" he enthused. "I like the way you think, Shadow! I will get the Chaos Emeralds, use the machine to dominate the world, and build a legacy of my own!"

"Do you really think it will be that easy?" Both the human and the hedgehog jumped as the strident female voice rang through the cavern. Looking up, Shadow had a brief impression of a white blur with enormous ears before a dokan bat dropped down to the bridge. As the two males gaped at her, she continued, "I've got a great idea! How about making a deal?"

Shadow was speechless, mentally kicking himself for not resetting the alarm after Eggman arrived. The doctor was the one to question the bat, "A...deal?"

"When you grabbed that huge emerald, you said something about a reaction; a reaction it may have with the Master Emerald. Now, if you could just let me borrow that radar, I may be able to help you." She struck a coy pose, completely unfazed by the gaping chasm at her feet. "What do you think?"

Shadow, completely lost at this point, merely glowered at the intruder, but the doctor appeared to understand what she was talking about. "If I do...what's in it for me?" he demanded.

"I have an idea where the other Chaos Emeralds may be," answered the bat, not in the least fazed by the chilly reception. And practically dripping with self-assurance, Shadow noted; this would be a female to keep a close eye on. She back-winged into the air and did a little spin. "I may not look like it, but do you know that I am a treasure hunter who specializes in all kinds of jewels?" Then she dipped her hand into her décolletage and pulled out a glowing blue stone.

Shadow narrowed his eyes. He hadn't been aware that she had an Emerald on her person. _It shouldn't have been completely masked by the other two; I must be more careful_. He caught the questioning glance Dr. Eggman threw his way and nodded slightly. The only thing that mattered now was collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds. Shadow was willing to team up with anyone who could aid him to that goal.

Eggman turned back to the bat and nodded. "Very well."

The bat smirked. "Okay then, it's a deal." Then she put on a look of mock dismay, "I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Rouge the Bat. But," she may have been talking to both males but her eyes were locked on Shadow, "you can call me Rouge."

Shadow snorted quietly as he turned his back on her.


	7. 6 Return to Prison Island

6. Return to Prison Island

The doctor had given Shadow his white Chaos Emerald, and Shadow had installed it and the bat's blue while listening to the other two talk. She'd insisted that several Chaos Emeralds were locked in a vault on Prison Island. Shadow frowned; he did NOT want to go back there. Suddenly he realized that Rouge was again watching _him_ the whole time she was speaking to the doctor. He scowled at her - and she had the audacity to wink at him. Shadow hmphed to himself and turned his back on both of them; pretending that he needed to monitor the computer as it adjusted to the influx of power. He had spoken occasionally to women on the ARK, but the only female he had any regular interaction with was Maria... and he had the feeling that this bat was a completely different sort of person.

And now, here they were, courtesy of the doctor's teleporter; back again on the Island where Gerald and Shadow had been held prisoner. At the moment they were not in the GUN facility itself but standing in the dense jungle that grew above the largely underground base. Shadow closed his eyes a moment and stretched out with his senses..._yes_. There were two - no three - gems here, one of which was very familiar to him. _I wonder if the Gizoid is here too? _ Rouge the Bat may have been a sneak and an annoyance, but her information was good. He opened his eyes again as the doctor began to speak.

He listened as Gerald's grandson outlined his plan; the human would serve as a decoy himself, using his mech to shoot up the harbor and the ships moored there. Meanwhile Rouge was to get in and locate the Chaos Emeralds while Shadow planted dynamite packs and a timed detonator. Shadow examined the detonator as he headed into the jungle. It was a neat, compact device, although the doctor apparently had a bit of an ego - a stylized caricature of his face was emblazoned on the front, next to the words 'Eggman Bombom'.

He planted a half-dozen of the dynamite packs in the jungle - some of which was actually swamp, he discovered when he nearly sank into a bog that had _looked _like solid grass, saving himself only by a dash along a line of the golden rings that were here as well - and was putting one on a ship in the harbor when the doctor turned up again. The noise of his decoy attack had been clearly audible in the nearer part of the jungle. "Okay, everyone ready?" he cried gaily as Rouge joined them. "Shadow, Rouge, on with the show!"

Before Shadow could continue his own task someone grabbed him around the middle! "Oh, Sonic!" cried a girl's voice, "I thought I'd never see you again! I'm so glad you made it!" He tried to turn around but she was clinging like a vine - and was she kissing the back of his neck?

He managed to twist in the girl's grasp as she suddenly realized her mistake. Letting go as if stung, she backed away, exclaiming "You're not Sonic, who are you?!" She was a pink hedgehog in a red dress.

"I'm the one who should be asking that question!" interrupted Eggman, raising a gun over the edge of his walker's cockpit.

"Dr. Eggman!" she cried, and ran away with a shriek. Unfortunately, she was stopped by the edge of the ship and turned back to face Shadow and the advancing mech.

Eggman growled to himself. "Amy, your timing is impeccable!" Looking over at Shadow and Rouge, he said "Listen to me; I'll take care of her, you two go on ahead!" The irritated scientist guided his walker to the edge of the ship near the girl. "Give up, Amy!"

Shadow was already darting away. _If the Doctor knows who she is, why did he say **he** 'should be asking that question'? _he wondered. _She thought I was Sonic; the doctor thought the same when he woke me up. But...he's bright blue, and I'm not only black but have red stripes, so why do people keep thinking I'm him? _He considered the unanswerable question for a moment then tabled it for later consideration. The front of the facility was in chaos, with soldiers and robots swarming like angry bees. As soon as Shadow saw a gap he became a black blur streaking through the front entrance. Dodging patrols again, he planted dynamite packs in the base itself, then found an emergency exit near the back. _Hmmm_, he thought as he read the sign, _'Alarm will sound if door is opened.' Good. _Although blowing up the base felt good, like justice for the destruction of his own home, he didn't really want to kill the soldiers here. After fifty years it was unlikely that any who had been involved in the attack were here on the island, and he had a feeling that the attack had not been general knowledge to start with. He'd checked the old news reports briefly and found only mention of a terrible but unspecified disaster, that most of the colonists had been rescued from in the nick of time. GUN had been considered greatly heroic in their efforts to mobilize enough shuttles to evacuate the colony. Just to make certain, he punched his fist against a nearby fire alarm button, then opened the door and scooted out into the jungle.

An apparently forgotten equipment shed, half buried in vines, received the last dynamite pack and then the detonator itself. He clicked on his radio. "I'm in position Doctor. Tell me when."

Eggman sounded highly put out. "There's been an unexpected delay on my end. There's no more time to waste! Set the timer for fifteen minutes! Let's go, Rouge!"

"Five minutes should be plenty," was the bat's flippant rejoinder. "Here I go!" The radio went silent again.

Shadow set the timer as instructed and made certain that the detonator wasn't visible from the outside, although in truth it didn't look like anyone had been near the shed in months. Then he started walking back towards the meeting point, taking the chance to really look at the strange area he was in. He wasn't forgetting that there was an alarm going on and a lot of dynamite packs around the area that were soon to explode, but he had plenty of time and the GUN soldiers would all be down near the docks, where the heliport as well as the ships were. So he took his time, trailing his fingers across the enormous trunks, wondering why this one was rough, and that one smooth; breathing the scents of strange flowers, and growing and decaying vegetation; noting the tiny creatures that flitted or scurried among the trees and - that was a butterfly! He followed the little insect without really thinking, only remembering that Maria had remembered them from her brief time on Earth, and how she'd described them. And in truth, it did look like a floating flower, brilliantly blue and gold, seeming to just bounce effortlessly along in the air in defiance of gravity. He started and lost sight of it as his radio crackled.

"This is Rouge. I've got a small problem... I can't _believe_ that I'm trapped inside this locked safe with the Chaos Emeralds! I guess I won't be able to call myself a treasure hunter anymore..."

Shadow glanced at the timer on his radio - just under nine minutes until the island exploded. So much for the bat being useful. But his mind offered an image of Rouge, sitting against a wall waiting for the explosion, then superimposed one of Maria, leaning on the console as death pounded on the door to the lab. _If I could have teleported her away then..._

"Ah...shoot," he growled. "Troublemaker!" He reached for the Emeralds - but they were too far for him to draw the power he needed. He began moving through the jungle as quickly as possible, trying to get close enough to use Chaos Control to teleport in to where the Emeralds - and presumably Rouge - were. He made good use of his recently-discovered lightdash every time he hit a string of rings headed the right direction. Hitting another swampy spot he vaulted into the trees and leaped from branch to branch above the stagnant water.

"Hey, that's..." The voice came from below and behind.

Shadow jerked his head around fast enough to yank a muscle. "That blue hedgehog again, of all places!" he exclaimed in irritation, as he recognized the person below him.

Sonic was darting towards him across a sort of island in the swamp. "I found you, faker!"

Shadow again felt that stab - part hurt, part fear - of being shunned by a 'real' dokan. And this blue freak didn't even know him! How dare he dismiss the Ultimate Life-Form so casually! "Faker? I think you're the fake hedgehog around here," he replied, his cool tones masking his inner turmoil. "You're comparing yourself to me? Hah! You're not even good enough to be my fake!"

His words seemed to strike home in turn. The blue's eyes narrowed in anger and he raised a fist as Shadow dropped onto the little island. "I'll make you eat those words!!" And he hurled himself into the air and, curling into a spiky ball, homed on Shadow.

Shadow was too shocked to dodge, barely getting his arms up in time to block the blue from smashing directly into his chest. The impact drove him back two steps but he managed to keep his feet. As the other jumped again, Shadow did his own jump-curl and the two bounced off each other in mid air. _He shouldn't be able to DO that!! No time to worry about that now._

Sonic landed wrong after the third clash, and Shadow tucked and rolled along the ground as the blue dokan tried to catch his balance. Seventy pounds of Ultimate Life-Form smashing into the backs of Sonic's knees sent him down into the mud. He leapt up and did another homing attack that Shadow did dodge, then tried to tackle the black hedgehog bodily. Shadow scooted forward, spun and rolled into Sonic again as he stumbled through the spot Shadow had just vacated. Sonic leapt to his feet and they faced off a moment, both panting.

It wasn't until his radio crackled at him that Shadow remembered the situation. Even as realization dawned, the Doctor's voice cried over the air, "Shadow? What are you doing?! Get back here right now before the island blows up with you on it!"

Shadow barely registered Sonic's shocked "Blows up!?" as he saw the timer now read one minute, twenty-five seconds. He glanced wordlessly at Sonic and fled, feeling the power of the Emeralds as he ran. The instant he could pull enough power, he teleported, praying he'd land in a clear spot and arriving on a crate in the vault with less than a minute left. Dashing across the room he'd arrived in, seeing only Rouge's surprise as she rose to her feet, and the three gems she cradled, he stretched out a hand and yelled " CHAOS CONTROL!!"

Later, he saw the recordings of the explosion, taken by helicopters fleeing the area. Due to the alarms he'd set off, a few of the dynamite packs had been discovered, which had triggered a general evacuation. He was relieved to learn that all the soldiers had gotten off; certainly no one could have survived the subsequent explosions. Judging by the films, the entire island had gone up in flames and concussion.


	8. 7 Doctor Eggman's Ultimatum

7. Doctor Eggman's Ultimatum

"_Shadow, what do you think it's like on Earth?" Maria was pressed against the window in the observation room, staring out at the planet. It was a full Earth today, the entire visible portion glowing with reflected sunlight. _

"_The Professor said his life's work was dedicated to all of those who live down there. He once told that the reason for his existence was making people happy through the power of science."_

"_Shadow..." _He could hear her voice so clearly in his mind.

"_Maria..._," he said silently to the girl in his memories, _"I just don't know anything anymore... I often wonder why I was created; what my purpose is for being here. Maybe if I go down there, I... I will find the answers...maybe..." _An old refrain that, from when both of them had been eager to journey to the planet that had seemed as magical as any fairyland. He gazed unseeing out the window, again remembering a day that was both a few weeks and a half century distant. But he _had_ gone down there, and things had only become more confusing; he had to gather the Emeralds in for the Eclipse Cannon, he _knew _he had to do that, but he wasn't sure _WHY_...and every time he tried to catch the 'why' there was nothing there, just the certainty that things must be so. _Maria..._ He missed his sister's presence desperately; even if she couldn't help him figure things out, her mere presence was reassuring and her smile could always raise his spirits.

"Why so melancholy?"

Shadow started as Rouge appeared behind him. Uncertain how to reply, he hesitated, but she continued, "That was so unexpected. So unlike you, Shadow, to come and rescue me. But your ability to use Chaos Control certainly comes in handy." She cast him a sly look as she came to stand beside him.

"Hmmm," said Shadow non-committally, returning his gaze to the window, "you know...I didn't come to save you. I came back for the Chaos Emeralds." Which wasn't the entire truth, but he didn't trust her yet.

"Yeah, yeah," Rouge brushed his remark away with the wave of a hand and the flip of a wing. "But then again, that's not the whole story, now, is it?"

Before he could answer, Dr. Eggman strolled into the room stretching his arms and neck and clearing his throat for attention. Looking at the pair of dokan, he announced, "Everything is ready to go!"

Rouge frowned slightly. "Are you sure? We only have six of the seven Chaos Emeralds, you know."

"That's more than enough for the demonstration," said Shadow, that strange certainty coming over him again. "So let's get this show on the road!" He strode towards the door, barely noticing Rouge's thoughtful glance or the startled doctor moving out of his way.

Back in the central control room, Shadow began the activation sequence for the Cannon, his fingers moving purposefully though the patterns Professor Gerald had shown him so long ago. Somehow it felt right, even though he knew this was not what the Professor had intended the Cannon for; it worried him slightly that he was so certain about this course of action, when he was so unsure of everything else. But it was too late to change his mind even if he'd wanted too; the plate bearing the Chaos Emeralds dropped out of sight down the central column. He looked over the edge of the narrow walkway around the computer. Way, way down he thought he could make out a faint glow as the Emeralds were positioned around the shrine. After a few moments a steadily rising hum indicated that the Eclipse Cannon was powering up and ready to be activated. Now Dr. Eggman stepped up to the computer.

Shadow only half-listened as the human made his speech, declaring himself the new ruler of the planet or some such thing. The hedgehog was watching one of the remaining remote cameras orbiting the ARK and feeling the shuddering of the asteroid-based colony itself as the shield of debris and meteorites that had hidden the face of the colony for decades shattered and dispersed. Then the stabilizing 'whiskers' that mimicked Gerald's (and his grandson's) moustache unfolded again into the light and briefly the face of the space colony was as Shadow had known it. But as the scientist pulled the activating lever, the central spire of the colony - the 'nose' if you will - split open like a flower, revealing for the first time the actual barrel of the most powerful laser cannon ever constructed. Then the colony abruptly spun off the side of the screen and out of sight; apparently one of the now scattering rocks had collided with the camera.

As the camera turned in space, the moon edged into view - then a truly incredible beam of blue-green light flared past from behind the camera and part of the moon blazed briefly red-hot, then exploded.

Shadow felt his jaw drop. He couldn't believe it - not the sheer power of the cannon, nor the fact that this human had actually blown a huge chunk out of the moon._ You showed him the Eclipse Cannon_, he reminded himself. _You helped him get the Chaos Emeralds. What did you **think** he was going to do, blow up a car? _

The doctor was busy with the communications equipment on one side of the computer console. Shadow regained his composure and kept his eyes on the remote camera's view, which was slowly rotating across the ARK's face again, then back to the moon. The molten glow was almost gone, but nearly a third of the sphere was missing._ He blew up the moon. I just helped him blow up the moon! _But there was a far worse undercurrent lurking at the edges of his consciousness. _Why do I **know** that this is mere drop in the flood that's to come?_

Something else wasn't right. Doctor Eggman was slamming his fist against the console and swearing. Shadow glanced around, noted that Rouge the bat was absent from the control room and asked "What's wrong, Doctor?"

"They're refusing. They want 'time to consider'. They don't believe I can do it again. Well, I'll show them...I'll charge the cannon back up and blast a piece out of the planet itself! How long, Shadow?" His fist slammed against the console again and snarled in frustration.

Rouge appeared before Shadow could respond, sashaying across the bridge with some sort of paper in one hand. "Why are you so upset? Well, that was really impressive. You managed to create complete havoc on the whole planet!" She looked to the human with an innocent, eager expression that Shadow suspected was as fake as it was ill-timed. "Does this now mean we control the planet and can do as we choose?"

"At this rate, the cannon will take too much time to charge up," Shadow spoke to the doctor, ignoring the bat. "If you want to unleash its full potential, you'll need all seven Chaos Emeralds."

Eggman rounded on Rouge, "Where in the world have you been!?" Shadow wasn't sure if the man had even heard him.

The bat blinked, looking curiously between the two males. "Has something happened?"

Eggman growled and swatted the console again. Shadow frowned at Rouge. "Our threats fell on deaf ears," he said smoothly.

Rouge accorded him the barest nod, then eyed Eggman stomping around the walkway with disdain. "Look at you, throwing a tantrum like a little kid. How embarrassing."

"Don't forget your end of the bargain, bat girl," the human snarled back at her. "What about the last Chaos Emerald!? We had a deal, right!? So _where_ is my Emerald?"

"Here you go," she trilled immediately, "I found this!" She proffered the paper she was holding, which was now revealed to be a news printout. The doctor snatched it out of her hand.

"Why didn't you show me this before!? What's this...?" He scanned the paper rapidly. "'Station Square saved from a life-threatening missile attack. The city has awarded its famed prize to the boy who saved Station Square...'" _From you wasn't it, Doctor?_ thought Shadow, as Eggman muttered his way through the article. Finally he cleared his throat and announced "This makes things a whole lot easier. Hurry, go back and find them fast! I want that Chaos Emerald!!" He strode across the bridge, climbed into his walker and entered the elevator.

The two dokan were left to their own thoughts as they waited for the lift to return; there wasn't room for them _and _the walker in the car. Shadow felt that strange ambivalence again. He dreaded what the Doctor was planning - someone, probably a lot of someones, were going to get hurt and he didn't know how to prevent it; but at the same time, something eagerly anticipated it. _Revenge for all the innocents on the ARK, especially Maria._ He saw it again, the terrifying flight down that final corridor...

"Did you get that?"

He glanced at Rouge, who wasn't quite facing him, standing with her head slightly cocked. _Was she talking to me? There's no one else here. _He didn't feel like answering her though. He twitched an ear and looked past her - the lift was returning. "Soon enough...Maria," he said softly, and walked towards the opening doors. He waited in the car, staring blankly at the wall. Rouge was saying something out there, he thought he caught his name...but then she joined him in the car and they rode down in silence.


	9. 8 The Last Chaos Emerald

8. The Last Chaos Emerald

The Doctor's teleport unit brought the three neatly down to his hidden base inside a pyramid. "Hidden in plain sight, like the purloined letter," he had explained to Shadow. "GUN's crawled all over the ruins but they haven't found me yet!" He led Rouge and Shadow to a small, robot-piloted aircraft. "This will take you to Station Square. Once there, you can locate that pestiferous little fox and retrieve the Emerald from him. I'll monitor things from here until you return."

"He's not actually in Station Square," objected Rouge. "He lives in a suburb of Central City, and he has a workshop there as well. I looked that up after I found the article."

Eggman glared at her a moment, then adjusted the controls on the plane. "Fine! There, now it will take you to Central City, and _then_ you can find Tails."

"Tails? What tails?" Shadow was suddenly lost. "I thought we were looking for a fox cub named Miles Prower."

"We are, but his nickname is 'Tails'," Rouge explained. She looped an arm around his shoulders and guided the startled hedgehog into the plane. "I'll explain as we go..."

Shadow pulled away from her. There was a seat behind him, but he chose to remain standing. "You just did. And why do you keep doing things like that?"

"Like what?" She held her innocent expression a moment, then grinned at Shadow. "Oh, all right. It distracts most males, or at least keeps them off balance, which enables me to get what I want. Or find out what I want to know." She considered him for several moments. "You, though, are about as easy to get hold of as your namesake. And quite the mystery man as well."

Shadow watched her warily as she sank gracefully into a seat across from him. "Meaning?"

She said nothing for a moment, crossing her legs and half-reclining in her seat. He waited stolidly while she studied him through half-closed eyes. "For instance," she said finally, "are you aware that you have two voices?"

"What?" Whatever he'd been expecting, that wasn't it. The red-striped hedgehog finally sat down in his seat. "What do you mean 'two voices'?"

"Hmmm, well we haven't really talked much, but when you're talking for yourself - like now, or when you said you came back for the Chaos Emeralds, not for me - you have a...live sort of voice, that changes with your thoughts and moods. But whenever the subject turns to the Eclipse Cannon or the Chaos Emeralds your voice goes all smooth and cool, like a frozen pond in winter. That was when I really noticed it actually, when Dr. Eggman came in and interrupted our conversation, and your voice just...changed. Like you were another person, or" - she eyed him closely - "hypnotized."

Shadow frowned. He had a feeling there was something important in her words, but - "What's 'hypnotized'?"

"Hypnotism is a method of putting people into a trance and telling them to do things," came the reply. "It's misunderstood a lot, but if you're susceptible, or there are some drugs that can make you susceptible, you can be instructed to do things that you wouldn't normally do. You can't actually be made to do anything against your nature - that's one of the common misconceptions - but if it's not something you _can't_ do, just that you _wouldn't _usually do, you'll do it."

Shadow felt a chill run down his spine, but kept his expression unchanged. "But... wouldn't you remember being told? I mean, wouldn't you know you were doing... whatever it was... because someone told you to?"

"Well, no, because usually the last command before waking someone from a trance is 'You will remember none of this' or something along those lines. The post-hypnotic suggestions - whatever you were told to do, like stay away from cigarettes, or ...oh, squawk like a chicken when you see a girl in a red shirt, say - those stay in your subconscious, but the whole episode is blotted out from your conscious mind. You think you're acting on your own initiative, although you don't know why if you think about it."

"Oh." _That sounds...too similar for comfort. Wait...what did she say? _"Squawk like a chicken at a girl in a red shirt?" Surely he hadn't heard that correctly?

Rouge giggled. "There are a lot of self-help hypnotists - things like weight loss or stopping smoking - but there are also a lot of stage hypnotists, who call for audience volunteers and set them up to do something stupid like that." Her expression became suddenly solemn. "But there are some serious military and governmental uses too, like flash training they give soldiers and deep operatives. And some uses that aren't so benign.

"Oh, look! Here we are." She turned away abruptly, swiveling her chair to stare out the window as the plane descended. Shadow frowned again; he had the impression she had said more than she meant to, or had come close to it. He shook his head and turned to look out his own window.

Once on the ground, the pair split up. Rouge headed off to rent a car - she'd offered Shadow a ride to Tails' house but he'd declined - and then search the fox cub's laboratory. Shadow was to check the house first and then meet her at the lab unless she radioed him first.

As it happened, no one was home at the Miles 'Tails' Prower residence. It was actually a slightly unnerving place, shaped like a giant fox's head. It also proved to have some sort of electronic lock. Shadow merely ducked around back, out of sight. He idly caressed the green Emerald, which he'd removed from the Cannon and brought with him, as he peered in through a window. Then he teleported himself into what appeared to be a bedroom.

It was reasonably neat, the bed approximately made and a single empty glass on the bedside table. He moved through the rest of the small house cautiously; he knew the last Emerald wasn't in the vicinity, but was looking for a possible clue to its location. Most of the house resembled the bedroom, there were a few signs of occupancy, but the house felt like a place that was slept in by someone who _lived_ somewhere else. The one exception was a small room with a desk that was buried under plans, diagrams, robotics guides and the odd bit of machinery; the room's wastebasket was similarly overflowing with discarded notes and sketches. Strongly reminded of Professor Gerald, Shadow teleported himself back outside and headed for the fox cub's lab.

He got a call from Rouge before he'd gotten half a block. "Tails has the Emerald in his plane, and I'm in pursuit. He seems to be heading for the Pumpkin Hills though. Shadow, can you get there first? There aren't really any roads through there."

"Got it," answered Shadow, looking at the map of the area she'd given him as they left the plane. "I'll be there." He wondered which voice he was talking in. _Presumably the 'live' one. I don't feel that certain-ness right now. But if I think about the plan... _He could feel it waiting, even thinking that indirectly about it. _So what is...'it'...after? _He remembered the vow he'd made on the top of the bridge. _Revenge. Revenge for Maria and the researchers and doctors on the ARK. 'I promise you revenge,' I said, but... Maria wouldn't–_ The doubtful thought was suddenly overridden by the images again of him and Maria running for their lives, dashing into the lab, her desperate lunge towards the capsule as the fatal bullet found it's mark._ But, I'm in the scene, it can't be **my** memory_, his mind protested faintly, but another, stronger voice overrode it - _Remember what they have done, Shadow; what they have taken. Remember Maria and your promise, and be revenged on the humans who took everything from us. _Shadow felt the rage kindling again as the scenes in his mind repeated. He knew the voice, and he knew the plan. They must not be allowed to get away with it; they must be made to pay for their crime. _Yes,_ he answered the voice._ I will get the last Chaos Emerald and carry out your plan, Father._


	10. 9 An Eighth Emerald

9. An Eighth Emerald

Shadow made it to the edge of the Pumpkin Hills before Rouge and the plane arrived. It appeared to be an canyon filled with mesas and the odd stone shapes resulting from wind and water acting on rock over eons. Until he found a vantage point and actually got a look at the country ahead of him.

_What in the world? _The shapes weren't as abstract or random as he'd expected. The Pumpkin Hills were evidently so-named because most of the rocks were in fact shaped like enormous jack o' lanterns on varying stalks. After a quick glance to make sure he didn't see an approaching plane, he looked back to his map. _Oh. They're artificially enhanced_. He looked uncertainly at the nearest smirking face. _I'd certainly **hope** so._ The idea that anything like this could be natural was just too...weird. Not to mention unnerving. The map's blurb was brief, but apparently most of the 'hills' had been pillars of rock with blobby boulders on top, until someone had thought to make a theme park out of the area and 'shaped' them a bit. The park itself had never come to be, but there were a few remnants like an abandoned castle that had been built for it, and of course, the hills themselves, which were a minor tourist attraction.

A set of rails stretched around and between some of them, presumably intended for cable cars or some similar sort of ride. Now they were rather rusty and some were broken, although the supports attached just below Shadow's vantage point seemed well embedded in the rock. He looked up again as his radio crackled at him and Rouge's voice came on. "Shadow, they're in that blue plane, spotted at eleven o'clock."

"Copy that," he radioed back. "I'm in pursuit." It was a small blue and yellow propeller plane, but he could feel the Emerald inside as it approached. It wasn't going to actually fly overhead, though, it was going to pass some ways in front of him. He took another glance at the rails below him and jumped, sliding down one the way he had slid down the cables of the Golden Span bridge.

The next few minutes were...interesting. Actually it was rather exhilarating for the dark-furred hedgehog as he leapt from rail to rail and vaulted between the massive pillars of stone with the ground so far below as to be an indistinct blur. A few times he lightdashed along lines of rings, which evidently were coalescing in this area as well. A further dash, this time of excitement, was added by his discovery (as a laser bolt flashed past him) that GUN was also monitoring the area. He wasn't sure whether the robots were after him or Tails' plane, but he didn't hesitate to take advantage of their presence, leapfrogging across several inconveniently wide gaps by homing consecutively along a line of Beetles. He was the Ultimate Life-Form! These puny mechanicals had no hope of hindering him! He'd never had a challenge like _this_ when he was on the ARK.

He got a nasty shock as he bounced off one last Beetle onto a "pumpkin's" head and dashed out on a steel beam to find - empty air. _Drat!_ He pinwheeled his arms as he tried to brake his momentum before he launched himself into space. _Good thing no one saw that,_ he thought, blushing slightly from embarrassment. _Not one of my more graceful moments. Where'd the plane go? _He sighed as he saw it heading out into the desert that was on the other side of the pumpkin-studded badlands, and raised his radio to his mouth.

"Doctor, they're heading directly towards us. What should we do?"

"Just sit tight," the scientist replied. "I've got them on radar. There's no way they can get away. I don't know what they're planning, but I'll be sure to give them a warm welcome."

"Roger that. Shadow out." He put the radio away and watched the plane fading into the distance._ Sit tight? Surely the Doctor doesn't mean for me to sit up here on this rock indefinitely?_ Shadow frowned, considering his options. After a moment he raised his radio again. "Rouge, where are you?"

Her reply was faint and a bit fractured. "I'm bac- on board the ARK. Did -ou catch them?"

"No, the Doctor is arranging something at the pyramid," Shadow answered. She signed off and he looked around again. There didn't seem to be any GUN patrols around at the moment, and the combination of hot sunlight and cool breeze was very pleasant, albeit completely unlike anything he'd experienced on the ARK. Now that he had the leisure to actually think about them, though, the open spaces were a bit discomfiting. He pictured the Doctor's pyramid in his mind and teleported himself away from the peculiar pumpkin-headed hills.

Arriving in the much more enclosed room that the Doctor had assigned him, he could almost feel the weight of the stone above him. A strange rumbling noise could be felt vibrating through the massive blocks that formed the walls and floor. Shadow kicked on his hover shoes and glided out of the chamber to seek the source. He found it in a large chamber near where Doctor Eggman stored his emergency shuttle.

Shadow had arrived via a passage that was about halfway up the wall of a vast circular chamber. A railing across the end was the only thing keeping anyone from wandering off into open air. Below him the blue hedgehog was bouncing around a massive stone giant that was attempting to squash him. Shadow snorted. He'd already seen enough of this Sonic to know that the lumbering golem had as much chance of catching the dokan as a snail had of outracing a cheetah. Still, it might be educational to watch the fight. He sat down and propped his arms on the bottom rail while dangling his legs into space.

Sonic was weaving around the moving statue, easily dodging the relatively slow swings of the arms - of course there was plenty of power behind those swings, one blow would literally flatten him. His target seemed to be a set of plates jutting from the golem's back; using them like a ladder, he bounced up to launch an attack against a blue orb on top of the thing's head. Judging by its condition, he'd probably done this a few time before Shadow's arrival. The second time Shadow saw him strike the orb, it broke off completely and the enormous statue collapsed and went still while the blue hedgehog - together with a red-spined dokan, the pink hedgehog who'd hugged Shadow on Prison Island and a fox cub who was presumably Tails - scurried off towards the shuttle bay. Almost directly beneath Shadow, Doctor Eggman gave a shriek of outrage and started to pursue the group.

A massive fist nearly flattened the man's walker and put an end to the pursuit rather quickly. Shadow half-rose - the golem had overcome its paralysis and was in motion again. He heard the human say something he couldn't quite make out, and then saw him shooting at the stone giant. Shadow hesitated, then sat back down again; this human seemed quite able to defend himself.

It didn't take long for Eggman to blast a few holes in the stone armor and shut down what turned out to be a robot made to _look_ like a stone golem. It was long enough, though, for the opposing group to launch the shuttle. Shadow assumed they were heading for the ARK and went to meet the Doctor in the teleporter control room.

Somewhat to his surprise, the Doctor didn't want him to go back to the ARK. "That bat-girl is already up there. Let her prove her worth for a change," grumbled Eggman. After calling up to the ARK and giving Rouge the news of the expected arrivals and the password to activate the security systems, he told Shadow to monitor things. "I haven't had a proper meal yet today. It'll take them about an hour to get to the ARK; I'll be back by then."

Shadow obediently sat himself down in front of the computer. After a brief trial-and-error period, he figured out how to shunt the programs monitoring the ARK and the shuttle to one side of the screen, enabling him to open a link of his own to the ARK's computer. Although Rouge had given him some potentially helpful advice, he still wasn't sure he trusted her. The fact that someone on the ARK was trying to get into the Project: Shadow files served to solidify his suspicions. Locating a query program, he set it to locate records on Earth pertaining to a white dokan bat named Rouge. He also ran a search for information on hypnotism, and flash training such as he'd received before he'd been awakened originally. Rouge had said the two were related...

The second query brought up a plethora of information and he spent most of the hour sorting through it before notifying the Doctor that the shuttle was about to arrive at the ARK, forwarding the items that looked important to the ARK's computer. The doctor glanced at the screen - which Shadow had cleared of his own searches and returned to the original ARK and shuttle programs - and dismissed Shadow to get himself some food.

When the black hedgehog returned, he found a rather perplexed Eggman frowning at a schematic of the ARK. Two glowing points were marked on the map. "This is strange_,"_ he muttered, "It's showing energy readings fromtwo separate Chaos Emeralds. Did they really think they could trick me with that fake Emerald?"

Shadow started to move towards the transporter but the Doctor interrupted him. "Wait, Shadow! _I'm_ the one who should be telling them the end is near, not you!

"Now is the time to end this long drawn-out battle, and mark myself a place in history as the ultimate genius! If something happens to me, I'm counting on you to finish the job! The moment for attack has come! It's now or never!" The walker clomped onto the transporter and vanished. Shadow realized he was standing there with his mouth open.

He closed his mouth. _That must be what they mean by 'a raving madman'. I've never seen anyone act that way... I wonder if Professor Gerald did, later_. It was _still _hard to comprehend that though scant days had passed for Shadow since the Professor put him into stasis, fifty years had come and gone for everyone else. The Doctor had condescended to tell him that his grandfather had died on Prison Island, less than a year after the 'ARK incident' and the mere existence of the colony had been all but forgotten since. _'Long before this...world I'm in'...? Is that it, Maria used to sing it. 'Long before this time...What was there? Who cared, to make it begin?' I do know that much at least. Maria cared. And Gerald cared, but maybe too much._

_I suppose,_ he glanced up at the screen which still showed the intruders moving through the colony, _I'd better go on up, in case the Doctor needs assistance. The last Emerald **must **be put into place._


	11. 10 Surprises and Disappointments

10. Surprises and Disappointments

Shadow arrived on the ARK and headed for his own quarters, rather than the cannon's control room or the docking bay. Once there he activated the security cameras, locating Rouge at the cannon's computer, still busy with something, and the doctor stalking the pink hedgehog through the halls in one area while the blue hedgehog, the red-spined dokan, and the fox cub (in a walker mech of his own) worked their way through another section. Shadow absently noted the doctor's capture of the girl as he opened the results of his searches. What the search on Rouge had turned up was enough to make him forget everything else on the screen.

_She's a spy. A plant, all this time to see what we're up to. _He scowled at the data as he scrolled through it. It didn't actually _say_ that of course, but although she was definitely a treasure hunter - and apparently a bit of a thief - it was more than clear that she was _also_ an undercover agent. The logical conclusion was that her unlikely appearance aboard the ARK - which most people no longer knew even existed - had been directly ordained by the government. _A spy. I knew I couldn't trust her._ He felt vaguely disappointed, without being sure why. He tried looking at the hypnosis info but just couldn't muster interest. He looked back up at the camera view and reached for the volume control.

"...the Emerald down right there and back off," the Doctor was saying.

The blue hedgehog smirked slightly, looked at the yellow emerald in his hand, and stepped forward. "You're turning into a big-time villain, Doctor! What?" As he bent to place the emerald on the floor, a capsule rose around him, trapping him inside. Shadow flinched involuntarily, remembering being trapped in a similar pod as Maria collapsed in front of him. He forced his attention back to the screen, where Sonic was shouting "Tails!"

"Heh, because you just told me, fox boy," chortled Eggman. "Now, for a little space ride! Once the capsule clears the colony - BAM!"

The blue hedgehog, to his credit, took this in stride. Shadow was impressed. Sonic merely looked towards his friends and said, " I'm counting on ya, Tails. And Amy...take care of yourself."

"Farewell, Sonic the Hedgehog!!" crowed Doctor Eggman.

Shadow darted to the observation port, in time to see the capsule appear from below his vantage point, gliding out into space. He wasn't certain what he expected to see, but the pod's explosion wasn't it. Again he felt a stab of disappointment, without really knowing why. "I guess he was just a regular hedgehog after all," he said quietly to himself. He had a sudden urge to _not_ be by himself. Since the Doctor was presumably occupied, he headed for the Eclipse cannon control room. Rouge might be a spy, but she was company...

Except that when he arrived, she was talking on her radio, and it became clear in just a few words that she was reporting in to her REAL bosses. Signing off she looked up greedily at the glowing gems in their indented plate. Evidently not realizing that Shadow had removed one, she said aloud, "Legend has it, whenever the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected, the power creates a miracle. I have six of them, they're mine! All mine!"

Shadow's disappointment suddenly crystallized into anger. "I don't think so," he said, stepping onto the bridge.

Rouge started, and turned to face him. "Shadow?"

"So, that was your plan from the very beginning, huh? Or was it a direct order from the president? Now I know who you are! You're that government spy, Rouge the Bat, aren't you?"

The white bat recovered quickly, putting on a bored expression. "So you did your homework, is that it? I would say that's an invasion of privacy."

"I could say the same thing about you," Shadow shot back coldly. She'd started it, after all.

"Hmm," said the bat thoughtfully, "looks like things aren't going quite the way I planned. But since my job is done, I thought it was time to take what's mine and get out of this place."

"You are one _pathetic_ creature!" sneered Shadow.

Rouge didn't appear offended, instead she retaliated, "Hmm, look who's talking. What about you?"

_What about **me**? What does she mean?_ Perplexed, Shadow watched her jump down to the bridge, waving a printed sheet.

"Here are the results form the research project called the 'Ultimate Life-form'." As she presented the paper, he immediately spotted the Biolizard's image in a top corner. Oddly, it was a picture of the prototype as he had last seen her, with the metal bits and the life-support system grafted to her, even though the text had her at only 2.7 meters long, which dated that portion of the information to well before his awakening. Rouge continued, "But...if this picture is of the real Ultimate Life-Form named Shadow, then exactly who, or what, is standing in front of me?"

Shadow didn't answer. She had him confused with the Project: Shadow prototype, but he wasn't certain she even deserved an explanation. At that moment he they were interrupted anyway as Eggman's voice came over the radio: "This is Doctor Eggman. I have found all seven Chaos Emeralds!

"Shadow, someone is trying to get to the Eclipse Cannon. There's not much time before the Cannon fires again! Can you get over there?"

The potential threat to the plan triggered Shadow's certainty again. The Cannon and the Emeralds both needed protection! He glared at Rouge. "If you want to live, leave the Chaos Emeralds where they are; the fake Emerald is good enough for you!" He turned on his heel and started to walk to the lift. It wasn't a certainty, he realized; not his own knowing what needed to be done, but a compulsion, making him do things regardless.

"Do you actually believe," Rouge sounded oddly hesitant, "that...you're the _real_ Shadow?"

"No doubt." _That_ he was certain of, if nothing else in this strange world.

"Even your memories might not be real, you know?"

"Even if my memories are not real, it's still me: Shadow. And I _will_ fulfill my promise to Maria. That's the only thing that matters to me now." He stepped into the lift and it dropped out of the bat's view.

A few minutes later, having taken a shortcut that actually took him out of the ARK and along some of the old GUN lift transport rails, he arrived at the chambers that surrounded the base of the Eclipse Cannon's visible barrel. To his amazement - and secret relief - the blue hedgehog Sonic was standing in the corridor!

"You never cease to surprise me, blue hedgehog," he said as he approached the other. "I thought that the capsule you were in exploded in space."

With an irritating cockiness, Sonic grinned at him. "You know, what can I say? I die hard." He started moving along the corridor towards the cannon, increasing his speed as Shadow kept pace.

Shadow was impressed in spite of himself. Although he was far from straining himself, he was skating at a respectable clip, and Sonic was running alongside just as easily. The problem was, Shadow knew full well that his own speed had been enhanced by the Professor - could the other's unusual color indicate that he was also some sort of experiment? "So...there's more to you than just looking like me. What are you, anyway?"

"What ya see is what ya get," replied Sonic, having no more difficulty talking while maintaining the pace than Shadow, "just a guy who loves adventure. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"I see," said Shadow. He realized that they were fast approaching the actual barrel chamber, and that the certainty - the _compulsion_, was trying to overtake him again - _They shall share my rage and despair! The Eclipse Cannon **must **be fired; NO ONE must be permitted to interfere!_ In spite of himself, the coolness slid back into his tones. "But you know, I can't let you live. Your adventuring days are coming to an end!" He lurched sideways and catching the blue's shoulder with one hand, teleported them both out to a pathway that had initially run across the face of the ARK. Perhaps as a result of the rock shield's destruction, it (and several others) had broken free and now orbited the colony asteroid. For some reason, strings of rings had considered it a good spot to coalesce and ran like lane dividers parallel to the length. Shadow could feel the instability in the surface as he landed, still racing alongside the startled Sonic. He was impressed at how quickly the other recovered from the unexpected transport, barely even stumbling; he also realized that since he still had the green Emerald, the cannon couldn't be fired.

"How did you get out of the capsule, anyway?" he asked, curiosity briefly overriding the urge to stop the blue dokan.

"Well, Tails made this copy of a Chaos Emerald," explained Sonic, pulling out a glowing yellow gem, "and he said that it had the same wavelength and properties as the real one, but wasn't as powerful. So, when the capsule was going to explode, I figured 'What have I got to lose by trying?' and tried to teleport back to the ARK, and it worked. 'Course I landed flat on my back in front of Knuckles, which was a bit embarrassing, but - hey, better than being blown up!"

He was far too cheerful, thought Shadow sourly, still struggling against the compulsion. He 'felt' for the copy and judged that yes, it was far less powerful, but certainly usable for some Chaos control abilities. As the compulsion pushed back he managed to say, "It's a shame I couldn't get to know you better." Then with tones as chilly as the space around them he added, "Sayonara, Sonic the Hedgehog!" and called up a blast of raw Chaos energy. "Chaos Spear!"

Somehow, Sonic dodged it. Shadow blinked. _That's not possible! He shouldn't have been able to dodge a targeted blast! _Then he had to fling himself sideways, nearly veering off the edge of the causeway, as a blue bolt of energy nearly targeted _him_. Behind him a piece of the causeway broke off and drifted loose in space. He used his lightdash to zip ahead along the rings and turned to target Sonic again. This time _Sonic_ teleported away, and Shadow only realized where he'd gone when a voice behind him cried, "Sonic Wind!" Then it was the black hedgehog's turn to teleport out of danger. He was only slightly surprised to see Sonic do a lightdash of his own to catch up as the new tail end of the causeway broke off in its turn, unable to withstand the Chaos blasts. After a few more back-and-forth exchanges, Shadow realized that it would be no small feat to destroy his opponent, and concluded that his purpose would be better served by delivering the Emerald to its designated spot. So with one more blast to distract Sonic, he teleported into the control room itself.

Doctor Eggman was already there, ranting about Rouge's duplicity - which alarmed Shadow for a moment until he realized the Doctor was talking about the absence of the gem he had in hand. "The green Emerald is here, master," he interrupted smoothly. "I needed to use it in the search for the last one." He tossed it neatly into place with the other six and left the room. His task was done.


	12. 11 What Memories Real?

11. What Memories Real?

Shadow went back to the observation room, not really knowing why. Alarms had started blaring shortly after he left the control room, and the ARK had lurched oddly, as if its stabilizing units had hiccuped. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the window_. I've done it, what I had to do. I've known since I woke up in this time that this was what I had to do. So why does it feel like I've just made the biggest mistake in my life?_

He jerked his head up as a very familiar voice came on the PA system, overriding the alarms. "Professor?" he barely breathed. As he turned he spotted the small monitor on one wall and felt an almost physical shock as he saw Professor Gerald Robotnik, chained to a chair, on the screen.

"This is a death sentence for every human being on Earth," said the man on the screen. "If my calculations are correct, the Space Colony ARK will impact the Earth in twenty-seven minutes, twenty-three seconds. All of you will be destroyed, along with your beloved planet Earth."

Shadow stared at the monitor._ The Earth– the Professor plans to hit the planet with the ARK? I have to stop– _ But as soon as he tried to take a step back towards the control room, he was unable to. The plan had to be carried out to completion; he'd come too far to stop now.

"I plan to give you a taste of my revenge, once all the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected. Once I initiate this program, it cannot be disabled. All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me...will feel my loss, and despair!"

Another voice from off-screen: "Is there anything else you want to say?"

"No..." was the professor's reply.

"Ready!!" the off-screen voice again. And then the recording looped back to the beginning, with Gerald announcing the death sentence again.

Shadow realized he wanted this to happen; shoving the anticipation away, he again tried to return to the control room, and again found himself unable to take a step. As Gerald announced the Earth's imminent destruction yet again, he shook his head, frustrated by his inability to act. It wasn't like a physical barrier he could push against, it was just...he lost interest in preventing the disaster and actually looked forward to it - until the recording reminded him what was going on. He changed tactics, reaching for the Chaos Emeralds - and flinched back. The power they were generating was incredible, he couldn't interrupt them. _**Why** Professor? _his mind cried._ You always wanted to **help** people!_ Then he remembered a private chat, when he'd first asked Gerald about Maria's illness. 'Maria is my life,' the elderly researcher had said._ He must have gone mad when she died. But why did he drag ME into this? _But he knew, really. _Because someone had to collect the Chaos Emeralds. Because GUN obviously made the recording, so they'd know what he was planning - that must be why they closed the ARK up. Because he needed to bait a trap so someone else **would** use the cannon._

What had Rouge said? Hypnotism was similar to flash-training, and both had darker purposes. He had come across that in his rather brief researches since then, as well. Certainly GUN had both flash-training units and deep-cover operatives, and the stasis capsules were commonly used to deliver such training. _He must have done something to me after he put me back in stasis. He must have...told me I had to do this. _The image of him running down the corridor with Maria flashed in his mind again - and this time he recognized the angle.

Shadow groaned aloud. _It's the security camera in the hall, right there! _He could have seen it if his eyes had been open. _And the other scenes in the lab, those are from the lab security camera. But it DID happen, why couldn't he let my OWN memories remind me? _

_Because he couldn't access them? Because...he needed to link the images to the compulsion? Because... _Shadows eyes flicked open, though he stared unseeing across the room. **_Because I promised Maria something else!_**

It was the right answer, he knew it - but what had he promised?_ Hypnotism can't make you act against your nature. You do things you wouldn't do, not things you can't do. I **can't** let all those people die!_ He tried again to return to the control room and made all of two steps before the compulsion locked down, stronger than ever. Revenge for Maria and everyone on the ARK was at hand; the people of Earth would know their own terror and grief. _No! This isn't **me**!_

And then the pink hedgehog ran into the room. "Shadow, we need you! Please help us!" she begged.

"It's all going according to plan," the black hedgehog replied smoothly, though internally he fought against every word. "There's no reason for me to help them. Besides, there's no way to save anyone." The last sentence - only the last sentence - did come from his heart. He couldn't even save himself from this compulsion, so how could he possibly help anyone else?

But _she_ didn't give up. "There has to be! I know that people fight over the most trivial things. Some people may be selfish, like the professor said...but they're basically good, if they try their best and never give up on their wishes. They always have a reason to be happy; that's why you should help them out! Saving them is a _good_ thing! Shadow, I beg you, please do it for them! Give them a chance!"

Shadow trembled slightly, as her words triggered the memory he'd struggled for.

_He stared out through the capsule's clear side, desperately. The blonde girl sprawled on the floor - so close! - but out of reach. She shook her head slightly, gasping for breath. "Shadow...I beg of you... Please, do it for me...for a better future..."_

"_Maria!" He had to get out, he had to get the door open to help her!_

"_...for all the people who live on that planet..." Her voice was fading, but her eyes burned brighter than he could ever remember seeing them - this was that important to her, "...give them a chance to be happy. Let them live for their dreams. Shadow, I know you can do it. That's the reason that you were brought into this world. Sayonara, Shadow the hedgehog."_

His eyes were stinging again. "That's what I've promised her... I must keep that promise... That's what Maria wished for..." His voice was barely audible, and a thin, hot line of moisture trickled down one cheek.

"Shadow?" The pink hedgehog looked concerned _for_ him this time.

"I gotta go now. I have to keep my promise to Maria - and to you." He spun towards the door and felt the compulsion try to stop him again - but he pulled Maria's memory, his _own_ memory of her, up like a shield... and... this time he felt the compulsion break. He took a step, and another and then he was into the corridor and picking up speed as he raced for the lift, not headed up to the cannon's control room this time, but down to the vast cavern that held the shrine - and the Biolizard.

Feeling a sudden surge of dread he reached and found the life support system; the Chaos drives that powered it were surging with energy. He opened his eyes as the lift reached him. "She's not in stasis anymore," he whispered.

The door slid open to reveal two dokan silhouetted against a plethora of Gerald's images all chanting in unison, "...will feel my loss, and despair!" Even as Shadow stepped out of the lift there was a surge in the Chaos energy above him and the Biolizard, awake and furious, dropped from her 'storage' site near the cave's ceiling. Swinging inexorably toward Sonic the Hedgehog and the red dokan who was with him, she bellowed out her rage.

Shadow moved to join the other two, overhearing the red one saying"...prototype of the Ultimate Life-form that was supposed to be encapsulated?"

There was no time for explanation, he could feel the shifts in the Chaos drives that signaled that Biolizard was preparing to strike. "Leave this one to me," he said shortly as he continued past the pair.

"Shadow, what're you doing!?" That had to be Sonic.

The black hedgehog stared at the prototype, who was still getting her bearings, and looked over his shoulder at the others. "I'll take care of this, while you run to get the Chaos Emeralds!!" There was no other reason for them to be down here, after all and he could feel that the red one was carrying... something that was related to the Chaos Emeralds, but different. He turned back to the Biolizard as the other two ran for the shrine.


	13. 12 A Promise to Keep

12. A Promise to Keep

Shadow stood his ground, studying the creature in front of him. The problem was, although he could feel that she was building up to something major, he had no idea what she could actually do. _The Professor never knew her to do anything but feed on the Chaos energy, except that time she went on a rampage. Her Chaos abilities are innate and instinctive, whatever they are. She may have cunning, but not intelligence. She's definitely got brute strength though._

The massive lizard had landed in a pool of the energy fluid. Shadow began skating around the lip of it, trying to draw her attention. He could feel that she was somehow investing Chaos energy into her hide, and suspected that it would be a _very _bad idea to touch her. _So how do I stop her? I'm not sure what Sonic and his friend are doing, but if it draws her attention they **will** be in trouble. Of course! If I strike at the life support unit, that should hold her attention. And perhaps...put an end to her. Maria wouldn't have liked it, but the Professor was right, she's far too dangerous to leave loose and what sort of life is it to be always in stasis?_

_Now I just need to get up there without touching her,_ he thought a bit sourly. _Oops, here she comes._

Gerald had never been able to work out whether the creature could still see or not after the rampage in which she had become fused to her life-support. He had said that she could certainly locate her prey, a fact she demonstrated by lunging towards Shadow as he moved. He darted further around the lip of the pool - he could outrun her easily enough, as she was barely able to stand on her legs and moved by slithering - but the point was to keep her attention focused on him, so he kept just out of reach. If fifty years of stasis had the same effect as on him...

As he'd hoped, she spun a couple of revolutions trying to catch up to him with her jaws and then stopped, dropping her chin to the floor as she panted for breath. Shadow made use of the pause to leap to one of the pipes that ran from the main unit on her back to her mouth and slide up it until he was able to home an attack in on the central power supply of the life-support unit.

The Biolizard didn't like that. She bellowed again and managed to buck him off; his elbow banged against her hide as he toppled back towards the floor and it felt like he'd stuck it in an electric outlet. _Ouch! _He managed to land on his feet and scoot clear as her head came around after him again.

A second circular chase ensued, slightly varied this time when he got to close to her massive tail. _Yipe! Guess that's why she's called a Whiptail_, he thought as he doubled back, having to dodge under the gaping jaws to escape the thrashing tail. She stopped again to pant, but as he started to approach he felt a shift in the Chaos energy, and suddenly a ball of black energy erupted from her open mouth. He ducked and immediately had to jump as a second black globe followed, crackling with blue veins of light._ The power in those! If one of them hits me I'll be out for the count_, he thought, _and then she'll make sure I stay that way. I may be immortal or I may not, but I bet I won't survive being chewed up and digested!_

He briefly considered trying a Chaos spear, but the energy currents were already so confused - between the Biolizard, the hyperactive Chaos Emeralds, whatever Sonic and his friend were doing, and the resonance of the Cannon itself - that he wasn't at all sure he could aim it properly. He settled for repeating his slide up the pipe to attack the life-support again, although this time he made sure to bounce clear after the attack..

Again the massive beast roared, flinging her head and tail up towards the ceiling, then she ducked her head and gave a massive shudder. Shadow's brief hope that he'd ended the fight vanished as a swarm of pink spheres appeared around her, forming a sort of shield that also crackled with stored Chaos energy. _What in heaven's name - her eggs? The whiptails were chosen for the research because they were parthenogenic, but she's still supposed to lay the things, not just teleport them into the air around her!_

_Although, that makes one thing easier_, he thought, as he performed a rapid series of homing attacks. Bouncing up the eggs like a ladder, he got high enough to target the beast's life support again. This time the Biolizard collapsed with a massive thud, and before either she or Shadow could stage another attack, there was a blinding green glow from the direction of the shrine, together with a painful surge of unfocused Chaos energy.

Shadow looked towards the shrine, shielding his eyes, in time to see the glow die. A massive green gem rested on the central altar, and the Chaos Emeralds were toppling from their positions atop the seven pillars.

He spun back to the lizard as with another ear-splitting screech, she vanished in a flare of blue light, leaving only a very familiar feeling behind. Shadow darted up to the top of the shrine to join Sonic and the other dokan. The red one looked at him and asked, "Is it gone?"

Shadow shook his head. "Is that what...Chaos Control is?" He'd used it himself enough, but had never felt anyone else use it. It was an eerie sort of feeling.

The three staggered as the colony shook even more violently. "Since we stopped the Chaos Emeralds, why is the Space Colony still on a crash course to Earth?" demanded the red dokan.

Before Shadow or Sonic could answer Doctor Eggman's voice came over the PA system. "The prototype is still alive! He's controlling the Space Colony as it is falling to Earth! He has become one with the Space Colony, and is determined to keep it on its collision course!!"

Sonic looked at Shadow. Shadow looked back, not sure what the other had in mind. "Sonic!" cried the red dokan. Sonic looked at him briefly, then back to Shadow, who could feel the other hedgehog starting to pull in Chaos energy. Shadow started to do the same, trying to match the feel of what Sonic was doing. The Emeralds began to rise into the air and orbit the pair, but the black hedgehog shut his own eyes when he saw Sonic close his, and focused on both drawing the power from the gems and imitating whatever it was the blue was doing.

He'd never felt anything like it. The power flooded into him, filled him until it felt like it must be about to burst out through his pores, then somehow coiled within him, and around him. It was immensely powerful, like the sun, and yet like the sun it _was_ life. It had the potential to scorch him out of existence but instead it sustained and replenished him. He could feel his feet leaving the floor, could tell where everything in the room was even though his eyes were still closed, could feel the presence of the human and the other dokan in the computer control room and the Biolizard on the exterior of the colony. She had indeed merged with the cannon - perhaps not too surprising given that she'd previously merged with her life support system - and was fleeing for the Earth as the nearest place of safety. The lizard's mind was, of course, unable to comprehend that the atmosphere would burn her to a crisp before she reached land - she had tried to fight and now she was fleeing. Faced with an enemy she could not defeat, Earth was where she'd decided to go. And beside Shadow...

Sonic the Hedgehog glowed to his senses like all the Chaos Emeralds combined and then magnified. Shadow opened his eyes to see that the other was no longer blue but a glowing, metallic yellow, and then realized that his own black fur had also changed, to a pale golden-cream. Distantly he noted that the red marks on his arms and legs had not changed. Sonic's now-orange eyes caught Shadow's and the two teleported out of the colony.

Outside, Shadow was aware that they we no longer in the fizz field, but it didn't seem to matter. The energy that suffused his body shielded him from the vacuum, from the radiation that sleeted through it, from the deadly cold and decompression. His body converted the carbon dioxide it generated back into oxygen without need to breathe. And then his attention was drawn to the face of the colony.

The monstrous lizard truly had merged itself with the cannon, and its long neck and stumpy forelegs strained towards the planet as if it were pulling the colony by main strength. As Shadow looked at it, trying to figure out how to stop it, he realized that there were weak spots on the massive body, visible to his strange new senses. He started to move towards it - the thought of motion becoming the deed.

"Wait!"

Shadow stopped and looked back at the golden hedgehog. "Do you know about Super forms? You need to watch your energy level," explained Sonic, looking more serious than Shadow had yet seen him. "If you run out of energy," he waved a hand and one of the golden rings appeared briefly in his hand, "you'll lose control of the form, and out here you'll probably die. So be careful!

"Do you see the weak spots on that thing?"

"Yes," answered Shadow.

"Then let's go!" And the yellow hedgehog was off, diving with increasing speed towards the colony and the lizard. Shadow watched Sonic slam into one of the weak posts, then followed suit himself.

Thud! He slammed bodily into the closest weak point and felt the energy inside the beast shift again. He bounced away, noting how the weak spot vanished as the energy flooded into the area, but could tell that the damage remained. He felt Sonic hit the creature again, from the opposite side, and then suddenly the creature managed to focus the energy, not into the black spheres this time, but a pair of energy poles that knocked Shadow back and sent him tumbling end over end. Sonic's voice rang in his head, "Where does he get all that power? Is this the power of the Chaos Emeralds? Shadow, are you okay?"

"Yes," Shadow answered, or hoped he did. Righting himself, he realized that he actually could feel his own energy draining even as the Chaos energy overflowed within him. Spotting a ring of the rings nearby he scooted towards them and felt the energy in them convert into his own. _Strange; but it appears Sonic is correct, I need these rings to retain control of the Chaos energy_. But he couldn't detect any others nearby, and suddenly realized that Sonic's sense felt strangely weak..

"Sonic," he called silently - telepathically? -, "what are you doing? You're almost out of rings! Switch places with me!" Catching the other's assent, he surged forward, calling, "Here I come, you creep!" _Did I really just say that? The excitement must be getting to me._

A few more collisions with the monster and it was Sonic's turn to call _him_ off; locating another group of rings, Shadow headed towards them._ They do seem to be attracted to the Chaos energy, or perhaps even generated by it. _Watching as Sonic dodged the energy poles and weaved his way in to pound on the Biolizard again, Shadow realized something. _I may have been designed to be the Ultimate Life-form, but I **was** designed. Sonic is as talented, but naturally so. He's the real Ultimate Life-form. _Snatching up the rings in the vicinity, he returned to the fray.

And suddenly, it was over. The Biolizard's massive form lay draped lifelessly along the barrel of the Eclipse Cannon. The two hedgehogs had time for a brief moment of triumph before they realized that the battle was _still_ not won: the ARK, no longer driven by the Chaos Emeralds or dragged by the Biolizard, was still falling towards the planet, caught in the ancient, inexorable grip of gravity. As one, Sonic and Shadow dove down to interpose their own tiny forms between the planet and the asteroid.

"No way that's getting through!" Sonic's voice and confidence washed over Shadow, who wasn't sure that he had the power to move even half of something as large as the ARK. Because they couldn't just stop it, the colony would begin to fall again as soon as they 'let go'; they needed to teleport the whole thing back to its balance point where gravity's pull in matched the orbit's pull out. Which meant a massive amount of energy, and Shadow could tell how tired he was beneath the Chaos buzz. But he matched Sonic's pace and direction, reaching out a hand - _I can't do this, I can't, I'm losing my grip on this form. _Then - as clear as a star in space - "Shadow... I beg of you..." _Maria!_ "Give then a chance... to be happy!"

"Now Shadow!" In answer to Sonic's command and a decades-old plea, Shadow gritted his teeth, dragged every ounce of energy he possessed and paralleled Sonic towards the ARK. The two voices rang out in tandem, "Chaos Control!!" The huge half-sphere of the colony asteroid vanished in a flare of light, reappearing in its old orbit. "Yes!" cried Sonic, "We did it, Shadow! ...Shadow?"

He could still see Sonic, see the yellow form dwindling as he dropped towards the planet, caught in the fatal grip of gravity. He needed another ring; he fumbled at one of the bracelets that encircled his gloves, they were power rings... wait, how did it get above him? He saw it floating up and away towards space. He felt distantly the air around him heating, but there seemed to be enough of the super form remaining to shield him from the worst of it. _Maria... this is what you wanted, right? _He couldn't seem to move; he was more tired than he'd been in his whole brief life. _This is my promise I made to you..._ He closed his eyes - he couldn't see Sonic anymore anyway, just space and stars above and the heat-glow around him. But the image of the world outside him was replaced by the vision of a girl, tall for her age but so thin, with sky-blue eyes and long golden hair. "You'll have to go down there Shadow, so you can tell me what it's like," said a voice from the past. _I can't die now, Maria wouldn't like it. I have to tell her I did what she asked. _Catching hold of the ragged remnants of the Chaos energy that had buoyed him so gloriously, Shadow the Hedgehog tried to focus his wandering mind and... reached...


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

Super Sonic looked into the distance where the ARK had reappeared. "Yes! We did it, Shadow!" Suddenly realizing the other's presence had vanished, he stared around wildly. "Shadow?" _Did he teleport away with the ARK? Can I feel him... Oh no._

He looked down. The pale figure falling below him was bordered by an odd purple glow. Automatically Super Sonic dove after him, then abruptly realized that his dive was perilously close to becoming a plummet. _No! If I go after him, we'll both fall!_ The glowing yellow hedgehog stopped with difficulty and automatically reached out to grab something that was hurtling up towards him. "Shadow," he groaned. _Maybe he can still Chaos Control away - he's better at that than I am! Maybe... _But he could feel, with the enhanced senses the Super form possessed, the other's exhaustion. Then, something else - Shadow was trying to gather the Chaos Energy...but he was falling so fast, the purple glow was nearly subsumed by the orange burn of re-entry. Then a sudden flare of purple light!

"Shadow?" he whispered. He reached out, trying to sense...

Nothing. Grimly he turned his face back towards the ARK.

The others were gathered in an observation room, when the blue hedgehog found them and stepped silently through the door. They looked up, pleased and excited... but Sonic saw both emotions fade as they realized he was alone. Rouge spoke what was on everyone's mind, "Where is Shadow?"

Sonic looked at his feet, clenching his fingers around the bracelet he'd caught. Made from a power ring, he assumed Shadow had been trying to use it to save himself. There was a somewhat embarrassed shuffling around the room, enough strangers present to make everyone self-conscious about showing grief. Rouge walked over to where Sonic was standing. He handed her the bracelet, not really knowing why. She looked down at it and turned it in her hands.

Hesitating a moment, she finally asked, "Do you really think... that the professor created Shadow to carry out his revenge on all those who live there, on Earth?"

Sonic looked past her, out the window. "He was what he was," he said finally. "A brave and heroic hedgehog, who gave his life to save his planet. Shadow the Hedgehog..."

Rouge looked at the bracelet again. "I guess you're right..." She drifted off towards the door as Knuckles the Echidna - the red dokan that Shadow had never actually met - moved in the same direction. Sonic stayed where he was, dimly aware of Rouge and Knuckles talking, and Tails and Dr. Eggman, and of Amy's approach. Had the professor intended Shadow only for revenge, or was there another reason? He seemed to share so many of Sonic's hitherto unique talents. "Could he have... the Ultimate Life-form?" he murmured.

"What's the matter, Sonic?" Amy's own manner was quieter than usual, which Sonic appreciated. He shook himself. After all, he'd barely met Shadow. They could give him a proper farewell back on Earth. "Oh, it's nothing. Come on! Let's go home to the planet as cool and blue as me!" He waited while everyone else filed out the door, and paused, looking around. It felt like a tomb, with only the faint echoes of his friends' (and enemy's) footsteps disturbing the silence. He looked out the windows at the blue planet below.

"Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog."

**A/N: ** I'm off for a couple weekends now - going to Ireland, yay! - but when I come back I'll start posting _Lost and Found_. One of the problems with _Sonic Heroes_ was that it had a story but didn't bother to tell most of it. So I'm piecing Team Dark's story together, albeit with a somewhat looser interpretation of the actual game parts than in the first two stories; Heroes really isn't well linked the way SA2 was. So if you enjoyed this one, check back next month!


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